Five Rangers Billy Never Kissed
by Panache
Summary: Part of my and Dagmar's five things that never happened fic game. Billy met and spent time with all of the first five female rangers but he never kissed a single one. So here are the five kisses that Billy never shared, ranging from angsty to sweet.
1. Cotton Candy and Cracker Jack Rings

_Disclaimer: I'm not fooling myself and neither should you. If I owned them, it would be all Billy, all the time . . ._

_Author's Note: This is a fic/exercise/challenge that turns up a lot on livejournals in other fandoms. I don't actually know whether they have a name but I call them Five Things that Never Happened fics. Basic idea, chose a theme (death, love, AUs etc.) and write a series of five vignettes on the theme (i.e. Five Ways Tommy Never Died, Five Conversations Zordon and Alpha Never Had, whatever). These vignettes aren't necessarily linear or even occurring in the same universe, it's just a chance to play in a microcosm. So Dagmar has kindly joined me in this exercise. You've probably already seen her brilliant first foray. I thought I'd give you mine. If you'd like to play it's easy, pick a Ranger or pick a theme, and write._

**Cotton Candy and Cracker Jack Rings**

**(Kim)**

He thinks she's the prettiest thing he's ever seen, all ribbons and bows and cotton-candy pink dresses that aren't quite long enough to hide her perpetually scraped knees. On his seventh birthday she gives him a book about dragons and damsels in distress and gentle youngest sons who wind up being brave. He reads it late into the night, flashlight under the covers, and his mom catches him because he's so engrossed in the story that he forgets to listen for her footstep on the stairs.

When they're eight, she moves, not far, but since he can't use his flashlight to say good night to her in Morse code, it feels like the other side of the world. But they still walk home together from school, and more often than not he can count on her inviting him over for chocolate chip cookies and milk, and that's how he develops his sweet tooth.

He asks her to marry him at age nine, holding out a ring he found his Cracker Jacks last week. It might be a little early to decide such things, but he didn't miss the fact that Kim got twice as many valentines as the other girls, so he figures he has to act fast. The 'okay' is barely decipherable through her giggles.

They're supposed to kiss now. He's seen it in the movies and read about it in that book she gave him, but she won't hold still so he misses and winds up with his lips on her earlobe, which just causes her to giggle more.

And it's really not going the way he thought it would, so he's about to get up and walk away, but Kim takes his hand and he can see she's put on the ring. "My mom made cookies."

It's the best honeymoon ever.

He never says anything when, at fifteen, he finds the cracker-jack ring nestled in her jewelry box, but he moves it from one side to the other, and when she flashes him a small, embarrassed smile the day after they switch their bodies back he feels like they're nine all over again.

- + - + - + - + - + -

Thanks for reading.

Comments and Criticisms Appreciated.

If you haven't read Dagmar's Jason centered fic. Go read it now.

Panache


	2. Turncoats and Translations

_Disclaimer: I'm not fooling myself and neither should you. If I owned them, it would be all Billy, all the time . . ._

_The Challenge: If you want to join in the challenge, please do so. If I can get enough people involved, I'll create a C2 for the collection._

_Author's Note: This has been a rather interesting exercise because it's forcing me to confront a lot of my fears as a writer. One of them is this particular pairing. Let's face it, this is the most iconic pairing for my Ranger of choice, and I've never really felt it the way I think others have, so it's a little scary. Please be sure to tell me whether I've done them any kind of justice._

**Turncoats and Translations**

**(Trini)**

When he finds her application tucked among the fifty others from Angel Grove alone, he thinks of turncoats and knives in the back. He pulls it out, running his fingers along the pen-ink of her name, imagining it next to those of Brutus, Benedict Arnold and Vidkun Quisling. But he can't quite bring himself to call her a traitor, so he slips the packet back among the others, and pretends he didn't see.

But he thinks about it constantly, over the next few weeks, tries to puzzle it all out, like an equation. Because if he can only find the right variable, he'll know how to make her stay.

They call him, running down the list of names from AGHS. Any he can vouch for? He speaks at length about Jason's abilities as a leader, Zack's endless energy and enthusiasm. Any he wouldn't recommend? Eugene Skullovitch might not be exactly what they're looking for. What about Trini Kwan? No- No, sorry don't know her very well.

He puts down the phone and imagines his name next to Cassius and Judas, thinks of Dante Alighieri and how cold it must be away from the light.

He's with her when she gets the phone call, as he knew she would, and somehow by the time she's turned to tell him the amazing news, he's contrived to smile. When for the first time ever, she misses the fact that it doesn't reach his eyes, he thinks this might just be what death feels like.

"I wish you were coming."

_I wish you weren't going._ Were he someone other than who he is, he'd actually say it. But he's only Billy, and he hasn't figured out how to say anything so simply. So he starts to ramble about the engineering feats accomplished by the architects of European cathedrals. The 'I love you' hidden beneath the discourse on flying buttresses is beyond even Trini's ability to translate.

He'd had some vague notion of making the most of the next few weeks, being with her every waking moment, crafting memories that will hold up next to the glitter of Geneva, the beauty of the Alps. But that's not what happens. He loses her sooner than he thought, watches her slip away to excited conversations with Zack and Jason, conferences on what to pack, the assignments they're already getting, how they'll get to the airport. He can feel himself fading into the background of her consciousness and he doesn't know how to stop it.

The days rush forward, time heedless of his pleas. And soon the flight is not more than twenty-four hours away, becoming less with each tick of the second hand. Determined to carve out these last few moments as his own, he offers to help her finish packing.

She's got too much stuff, which strikes him as beyond funny, and he laughs for what might be the last time. He's going to tell her to get rid of a few things, but his eyes catch on the photo album he put together for her, and he's afraid that might be the first to go.

"We need to exert more pressure. The addition of your weight plus some effort on my part should be sufficient."

"What? No Billy, that's--" But her protests are lost in laughter as he lifts her up and sets her down on top of the suitcase. Bracing his hands on either side of her, he adds to the effort. They just make it, the locks sliding closed with a quiet _snick_ that sounds like a gunshot next to the silence that follows.

There's something intimate and important happening now, something that he'll just ruin with words. Trini's hands linger on the locks, as though she's not exactly sure what to do next, and with her bent towards him he can smell the jasmine of her shampoo, even as the curtain hair hides her face. His hand moves almost of its own volition, reaching down to capture her fingers and draw them away.

"Oh." The not-quite word is enough, enough to tell him that this time she's been able to master the translation, to decipher his meaning.

Not waiting to find out if she intended to add words, he dips his head under her bowed one, and presses his lips to hers, trying to communicate through the gentle, tender kiss all the things he'd trip over trying to say. The audacity of the move startles him, but then he has little left to lose. When she brings her hand up to stroke his cheek, he thinks he might have even won something.

But as he pulls away, he can see the start of tears in her eyes, and he knows he hasn't.

"I'll wait." He makes the promise before she has a chance to speak because it lets her go; because he can't bear to hear that it's not enough, that he's not enough. "I'll wait for you."

And were he someone other than who he is, he'd say much more, but he's not, he's just Billy, and he has to start learning to say things simply.

Two years later, when he makes the decision to stay on Aquitar he thinks of turncoats and knives in the back. And though he tells himself that she left first, that she never asked for him to wait, it doesn't stop him from placing his name next to Brutus and Cassius and Judas Iscariot.

- + - + - + - + - + -

Comments and Criticisms always appreciated.

Next up we're doing Tanya, which is its own kind of challenge.

Panache


	3. On Knife's Edge

_Disclaimer: I'm not fooling myself and neither should you. If I owned them, it would be all Billy, all the time . . ._

_The Challenge: If you want to join in the challenge, please do so. If I can get enough people involved, I'll create a C2 for the collection._

_Author's Note: So we've done cute and sad and apparently the next thing on the list is . . . well I'm kind of at a loss as to how to describe this, possible weird and snarky is as good as I can do. This is for Bryn (she knows why) and I owe the title to Dagmar._

**On Knife's Edge**

**(Tanya)**

The throwing daggers sound like curses as they rent the air. Not looking up from the page of schematics, he takes a mental tally—

_Thunk. _That's one. _Thunk. _Two. _Clank. _

"Shit."

The horrible thing is she's getting better.

"You're thinking about it too much."

"Shut up." The words lack their original sharpness, edges dulled from overuse. He ignores them.

"You asked for my help."

"Yeah, and you refused."

She has him there, so he shrugs and continues work on the plans for Tommy's new Zord.

"You know, I don't even get why you're here. Isn't there someplace else you can work?"

There is. Usually, he works up in the main chamber with Zordon and Alpha, but every once in awhile, he needs to feel like something more than a machine or a giant brain, so on Tuesdays and Thursdays when she comes to work out in the complex's training gym he makes time. Makes time for her, for this, even likes it in a way. He doesn't think she takes it as a compliment.

He never meant it as one.

"Isn't there someplace else you can train?"

That shuts her up. He made the mistake of asking once why she doesn't train with the others. She's too embarrassed. He let the follow up question drop because he already knew the answer.

She can train in front of him because he doesn't count.

_Thunk._ One.

_Clank. Clank._

Maybe he spoke too soon about her improvement.

"Don't you dare say anything."

"About what?"

The pages of schematics go flying, the one in his hand ripped almost in half so it dangles like some paper Pac-man, her holding one end, him the other. She has gotten faster and quieter, at least. He looks up to find her glaring down at him, almost trembling in suppressed fury. Apparently his feigned indifference pissed her off more than his real attention for some reason. He really can't satisfy her, which would bother him more if he was trying. Still, he's never made woman tremble before, and he finds he quite likes it, even if this isn't the standard scenario.

Heaving an overly dramatic sigh, he looks pointedly from her to the scattered pages and back again. When she doesn't flinch, he releases his half of the page, ceding the round. They'll add it to the scorecard that never gets tallied, for the game nobody ever wins. Hell, he's not even sure what they're playing for.

She's got his attention now, got the upper hand. The pleasure that crosses her features at the realization almost mutes the flicker of apprehension that follows because it's not often things turn out this way.

"Why don't you like me?"

It's the wrong question because he _does_ like her, likes her far more than any of the others these days. There's no history bound up this, no memories of shy Billy or grateful Billy or happy Billy to confuse the picture. She's always seen him in shades of grey, always heard the threat of a storm in his voice, so she's the first to stop jumping when the sky darkens and the thunder cracks. Sometimes he thinks he's the only one to notice the fact that she doesn't mind, not really, and that makes him wonder what she was like before coming here, wonder if maybe she wouldn't have chosen this exact set of friends were it not for the fact that being a Ranger makes it impossible to choose any others. After all he hasn't failed to note that her training clothes are black, and there's not an inch of yellow to be seen.

If she's wearing yellow in places you don't see, does it count?

And at that piece of if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forest-philosophizing, he realizes that sitting here with her very nicely toned stomach taking up his direct line of sight is not going to result in the conversational scales tipping in his favor. So he stands and answers her question with one of his own. "Why do you care?"

She doesn't step back even though he's crowding her personal space, and maybe that's an answer in itself, but still he wants to hear what she comes up with. So he waits, their bodies so close it's almost an embrace or it might be if their hands weren't clenched into fists, or maybe it _is_ an embrace and they're both just screwed up enough that fists are appropriate. Infinite seconds, instant eternities, they all slide past as she looks at him and considers the answer, weighs exactly what's going to push his buttons the most.

_That's it Tanya, get deep inside, riddle me out. Think about me._

When she finally settles on the perfect one, he can see it in her eyes, in the way they go supernova. It's the first time he calls any part of her beautiful.

"Because it bothers you that I do."

"It doesn't." But he betrays himself with a smile because it's too perfect, too exactly right. It does bother him. She bothers him, like a hangnail or a scab. You curse the pain, try to figure out how to get rid of it, but even as you do, you can't help but pick at it, play with it, savor the sharpness of feeling, the tiny little ache that, when it's with you, takes your mind off all the other duller, greater, more encompassing wounds. It's why he refused to help her train, why he pretends he doesn't like her. He doesn't want to be her friend because if he is, he'll lose this, and right now this is far more precious.

So when she starts to smile back, starts to think they've gained some kind of understanding upon which a friendship can be built, he does the only thing he can think of . . .

He kisses her, though describing it as such seems generous. There's nothing gentle or giving about it, nothing that he's ever thought, ever been told as kiss should be about. Everything's aggressive, reactionary. Fingertips pressing into her neck a fraction too harshly, her teeth catching his lip in response. She tastes so good, like freedom and release. For exactly thirty-seven seconds no one exists for him other than Tanya, and he thinks it might be the same for her.

He'd meant it to be a means to an end, severing connection before it formed, but it's spiraling out of control, out of his control. He can feel the tendrils of new connection reaching for him trying to entice him, so before they can take hold, before he can give into the lie, he breaks the embrace, shoving her away because if he's still touching her, he might reach for her again.

Yet even as he does so, his eyes ask a question.

The smack of her hand on his cheek sounds like a yes.

Next Thursday when she comes in to work on her kicks, he's positioned his chair so he has a good view of the mirror, brought a cooler of chock full of ice cold water he doesn't intend to share, and made copies of all his schematics. He really can't afford to lose another original set.

- + - + - + - + - + -

Comments and Criticisms always appreciated. Feel free to tell me how strange this part is.

Panache


	4. Snow with Benefits

_Disclaimer: Do I even have to say it? Yeah, I guess I do . . . Not mine, someone else's toys, if they were mine Billy would never have left, etc, etc. and so forth._

_Author's Note: Okay this one was actually interesting to write because there was the challenge of making sure it didn't feel like a missing vignette from Conversations, so I tried to go somewhere different with my favorites. It kinda worked. As always a huge thanks to Dagmar who did some light betaing above and beyond the call of duty._

_Author's Note 2: Despite my earlier assertions that these vignettes didn't have to be linear or in the same universe, mine somehow wound up being both, so you can actually read these with all the previous ones in mind._

**Snow with Benefits**

**(Kat)**

He probably wouldn't have noticed her except it's bitterly cold outside. The temperature dropped a good ten degrees with the sun, and there's a brisk wind coming off the mountains. Normal people, sane people, are inside, drinking hot chocolate around an aggressively cheerful fire. There might even be small talk among strangers.

So that's his reason for being out here.

Hers seems to have something to do with a tree . . . that's really taking quite a beating. He's not sure how much longer the stick she's using is going to hold out and once it breaks . . . he's a little afraid she'll move on to using her hands.

"Was it a very bad tree?"

The lame joke earns him a snort, but she doesn't stop the rhythmic _thwack, thwack_ that's now officially progressed to scary. He stands there for a moment just watching, trying to decide if this is really something he wants to get involved in, after all he's been making a pretty good go of none involvement. On the other hand, he supposes he killed that the moment he volunteered to go on this ski-trip in the first place.

Stepping between Kat and the tree, he grabs her wrist. At first she just looks down at where his fingers press into her flesh, as though she can't understand why her arm won't follow her orders anymore. Finally she seems to connect the impediment to him, and looks up in annoyance.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't stand by and watch the brutality any longer. You want the tree? You'll have to go through me."

For a second, he almost believes she might. He can feel the tensing of her muscles, see the flash of evaluation in her eyes, and he starts to evaluate back because his spate of selfless volunteerism doesn't include getting hit. But he's spared from finding out just how out of practice he is because in the next instant the fight goes out of her in a rush, the stick dropping from her hand.

She steps away, and he lets her. Hey, he's done his job. Made the world a safer place for trees everywhere, and really that should be the end of it. Except it's not because dammit, if she doesn't look utterly lost and fragile, even in that big bulky pink coat, and he's thrown back to the time after they freed her from Rita's clutches, to those two weeks when they really weren't sure if she was going to make it, pull it all together. He'd cared then, actually cared deeply whether she would or not, because there'd been a moment or two, before it had become obvious to him that her feelings for Tommy were not going to fade with the spell, when he thought she might have cared, too. Now staring at her, just as broken as before, he finds he still cares.

So he trudges after her, crunching through the ankle-deep snow, as she makes a beeline back to her cabin. He could be the invisible man for all she acknowledges his presence, and it's so like every other day of his life that he almost turns around, but she asked him on this trip, she invited him, so she can see him, which means she's just ignoring him. At least the insult is active instead of passive. When they finally reach the cabin, she unlocks the door and goes inside, leaving him to stand on the steps like the worst kind of fool, but then she appears back in the doorway and scowls at him.

"You're letting all the warm air out."

Not quite as gracious as her last invitation, but it'll do. He comes in out of the cold.

"Would you like to explain why you were so intent on murdering a helpless California Spruce?"

Turning from having hung up her coat, she gives him a bittersweet, sardonic smile, which he actually thinks is lovely. Does that make him horrible or just a little bit messed up?

"Do I really have to?"

No, no she really doesn't. It's Tommy. It's Tommy and Kim, and Tommy and Kim and her, and probably that ski instructor thrown in there somewhere, just to round out the mix. And he doesn't want to wade into that mire, for fear he'll get stuck somehow. So he just sighs and shrugs out of his coat.

Which he realizes is a stupid move the moment he does it. Because now he's committed. To what, he's not sure, but taking off his coat implies that he's staying, and he can tell it's not going to be for the scintillating conversation.

Kat flops down on the bed, ignoring its creak of protest, and stares up at him, doesn't say anything, just watches. It's been so long since anyone paid him this much attention that he finds it strangely disconcerting. But that doesn't stop him from staring back. Her long-sleeved t-shirt has ridden up just a little bit, giving a tantalizing glimpse of her stomach. It's flat and smooth, lacking Tanya's definition, but he knows the muscles beneath are just as strong for all that they're hidden.

The fact that there might be something vaguely fetishistic about his fascination with this portion of the female anatomy flits across his brain, and suddenly he's embarrassed, blushing because Kat didn't invite this appraisal, didn't tacitly acquiesce by her presence.

He turns to go, thinking he's surely managed to work off a few of the required minutes, and if he's still being incredibly rude, well, there isn't exactly well-established social etiquette for this situation.

But she rolls up from her prone position and catches his hand, tugging him back around to look at her. "Don't go."

The words clang in his ears like warning bells, and he can see big red 'run now' signs flashing in front of his eyes. This is the worst idea in the history of incredibly bad ideas, but somehow he's already in the mire, and sinking fast.

The bed asserts an even more vigorous protest as he adds to its burden. Lying beside her, staring up at the ceiling, their hands still connected, he can smell her, and it's different than he imagined—he'd thought flowers, lilies and vanilla perhaps, but she's simple and clean, like fresh linen and the smell of ozone just before rain.

"What am I doing here, Kat?"

"Just here or here, here?"

"Here, here, in your cabin, on this bed. What am I doing here?"

Rolling on her side, she looks at him for a moment, and then leans down to press her lips to his. The kiss is questioning, offering, and though he doesn't push her away he makes no move to reciprocate because she hasn't answered his question.

She pulls away with a frown. "Does there have to be a reason?"

He traps her hand where it rests against his chest because he's not necessarily eager to break the connection, he just needs to know the rules. And there have to be rules, because if there aren't he could so easily slip, could so easily find himself waiting all over again, and though he knows he's already going to die waiting, he doesn't have to do it twice over. "Yeah, yeah there does."

She bites her lip, and he holds his breath. If she says it's because she's hurting, because she needs comfort, or anything so truthful, he'll be out the door and in the cold before she can blink. It's too nebulous, too likely to happen again. Tommy's too good at hurting people without meaning to, Kat's too good at getting hurt.

"What if I said it's because there's snow?" She looks at him as she says it, a serious, evaluating look, and he realizes she really wants to know, if this is good enough, if what she's asking and offering, is enough. Because really it's nothing, snow never comes to Angel Grove.

It's good enough for him.

A week later when he sees her attacking a rather young elm outside the youth center, in an incongruously formal pink dress, he just stands on the other side of the street, and wishes it weren't sixty degrees and clear.

Six months go by, and when he stumbles over her sitting in the dark, in his apartment, on his bed, he's confused and not in the mood to puzzle it all out. This is not the day, Jason's just come back and he's become a little bit more invisible and besides she and Tommy have been doing fine.

"Why are you here, Kat?"

She looks up at him and even in the dark he can see that her expression is serious. "Does there have to be reason?"

"Yeah, yeah there does."

"I thought there might." And she flicks on the bedside lamp, so that he can see his entire bedroom floor has been covered with what looks like tiny iridescent white confetti. He's speechless and more than a little pissed because it's going to take forever to clean up, but when he turns back to tell her this, he finds that she's stood, and they're now so close that he can smell her again. She smells exactly the same.

Reaching up above their heads, she begins to sprinkle a handful of the confetti over them, and he realizes what it looks like. She smiles.

"What if I said it's because there's snow?"

- + - + - + - + - + -


	5. The Sweetest Thing

_Disclaimer: Do I even have to say it? Yeah, I guess I do . . . Not mine, someone else's toys, if they were mine Billy would never have left, etc, etc. and so forth._

_Author's Note: So there's been a delay, partly because I'm prepping a partner for trial, partly because this part decided to do its own thing and fought every attempt I made to beat it into submission. The result . . . well I'll let you be the judge._

**The Sweetest Thing**

**(Aisha)**

The first time he sees her, she's screaming in pain—ear-shattering, earth-moving shrieks that he thinks will collapse the already unstable complex down around their heads. And she won't stop, he knows she won't stop, because the screwdriver that he plunged through her left shoulder must hurt like a sonofabitch.

He just screams back—Who are you? Where'd you come from? How did you get in here?—keeps demanding answers, all the while digging the metal shaft deeper, tearing through muscle and tendon with abandon. It's not until _what _she's screaming manages to penetrate the haze of adrenaline and fear cocooning his brain that he lets up. Still, she keeps repeating it, turns it into a whispered mantra as she works to hold herself still so he can remove the screwdriver without doing anymore damage.

"Billy, it's Aisha. Billy, it's Aisha. It's Aisha . . . Aisha . . . Billy."

He'll never tell her that it was his name and not hers that made him stop. Hers means little at first. Even after he's lowered her to the ground and ripped strips from her shirt to staunch the bleeding, he still can't place her. The name comes first. It floats up from the seemingly bottomless abyss of half-forgotten memory, but her face . . . her face stays unfamiliar. He can't reconcile the taut, hardened planes her features have become with the ones he remembers.

It's not until two days later, when she smiles at him over a can of beans that he finds her. Months go by before he stops chastising himself for it, but he does eventually. After all, in this time-stream they've never met.

She doesn't take offense; being forgotten is what saved her. They come to that determination as he patches her up, stitches her together with the surgical thread, bandages her with the gauze, and pumps her full of the antibiotics and painkillers he looted two pharmacies and a hospital to find. He talks to her to keep her mind off the pain, and his off the damage. Together they piece together the story with the fragments each holds, and though gaping holes remain, the framework is terrifying enough.

She was in New York when the first attacks came. If she closes her eyes, she can still see the fires, feel the crush of bodies as people fight to make their way across the bridges by any means necessary. In the end she estimates the brutality of people desperate to survive claimed more lives than any alien firepower. At that remark he starts to remove his hands from her shoulder, but she stops him. Because the world has gone mad, he's the one to flinch at the contact, not her.

He got Tommy's message on Aquitar, months after it was sent because, even though the Red Ranger had somehow managed to put his hands on the strongest transmitter in the Northwestern United States, it wasn't strong enough. By the time he came back it was too late. Maybe it was too late when Tommy sent it. He doesn't know.

From there, the stories merge, becoming variations on a theme. They made their way here because it seemed logical, because they couldn't think of anywhere else to go. Neither of them knew that it had been destroyed long before this.

And in the end it was the ignorance that kept them alive. They were the only ones to run far enough. He skipped the planet; she skipped the time stream.

He tells her to get some sleep, save her strength. She doesn't argue, doesn't ask whether he'll be there when she wakes up. They both know he will be. In the last hour they've come to an unspoken agreement, formed a new family. They'll stick together. They'll survive.

For a few weeks they remain rooted to the wreckage of the Power Chamber, sleeping in a doorway that leads to nowhere because it's the most structurally sound part of the complex, cooking their food over a tiny constant fire that rests in a spot that he thinks once held the viewing globe, and trying to ignore the fact that as each day goes by, no one comes.

They fall into a routine. Aisha gives him lists of supplies and sends him out to scavenge from among the nearby communities. He comes back to find new amenities she's added to their lives, ingenious things she's done to create pillows, direct smoke, provide light. The first time he kisses her on the forehead before leaving, he realizes how oddly provincial they've become, a regular post-apocalyptic Ozzie and Harriet.

By the second week, he's discovered that his talent with machinery extends to hot-wiring cars and disabling home alarms. By the third he's stopped calling out when he enters a home. Nobody ever responds.

In the fourth week, things change, the list Aisha gives him is simple—weapons, ammunition, and fertilizer—it only takes him a moment to realize what she's got planned. Yes, she's the planner, the leader. In another life, another time, their roles might have been reversed, but he's looked into her eyes, watched her stare at the walls of the complex, and he knows she can make the decisions he can't. She wants to live more. Not because she has something more to live for, just because she's fought longer and harder to be here and she'll be damned if she just lies down now.

The fact that she's a fighter shouldn't have surprised him, but it did, and still does at times. It makes him wonder about Africa, about whether that little spot of peaceful land she chose on her quest remained that way over the next decade. He watches her dismantle and reassemble one of the semi-automatics he brought back with the cool efficiency of someone who'd done it many times over, and decides he doesn't want to know.

"What?"

She's staring at him, watching him watch her. And despite her question, he can tell that she knows _exactly_ what. The word is more of an invitation, a test. He could ask the question, could comment on her familiarity with firearms in a way that conveyed disapproval, could do any number of things that would allow him to extricate himself, to draw a line and say 'I go this far and no further. I'm not willing to follow you down.'

He hands her a rifle, watching carefully as a she checks it, so that he can replicate the motions.

Because he'll follow her down, as far as she goes.

And he does. He falls with her, into her.

If this were a world where children still laughed and only evil men committed murder, he might call what they have love. But he's held a man at gunpoint and known he'd pull the trigger, and the last time they saw a child, well . . . Love didn't survive the war. They simply have the core that's left. Its softness burned away by the fires. Its passion cooled by the body's other needs. Its selflessness tempered by the necessary selfishness of survival. Hard, jagged, cold, it is an emotion re-forged, for which there is no word.

But it is theirs, and they have it.

It happens by increments—inches, minutes, drops—and if he thinks about it, he could catalogue the steps, map them out the way she does his scars.

When she buries her head in his shoulder so she doesn't have to watch the shell of their one-time safe-haven implode, and for the first time he thinks he might be keeping her afloat.

When a minute later she walks away without looking back, and he thinks the only thing keeping Aisha together is Aisha.

_Shrapnel, left arm_—he under-estimated the strength of the blast.

The first time he moves inside her, his eyes closed, her hands balled into fists against his back, their bodies barely touching.

When he breathes a name against her skin that isn't hers, and she doesn't stop.

When the name she cries out isn't his either.

_Bullet graze, right shoulder_—there are others out there, just as desperate to survive, just as untrusting.

The first time she helps him strip a camp, going through the rations with a clinical eye, making him take the jacket off the father's body because it's warmer than what he has.

When they stay that night to bury the bodies.

When she bites the inside of her mouth so hard, it draws blood, but that still doesn't stop the tears.

When she lets him watch her cry.

_Home-made spear through his left shoulder_—she likes the poetic-justice of that one.

When they stop in what he thinks might be Arkansas, and though she asks the same questions she always does, her voice holds no hope.

When later that night, she admits what they've both been thinking. "They're not out here. We won't find them."

Her eyes hold no more grief than his. In their minds they'd buried the others long ago. He thinks it's better this way, thinks Tommy and Jason should have been allowed to maintain their honor, Kim her goodness, there's only so far some people can bend before they break, before they shatter. Had Aisha stayed he thinks she would have been like the others. After all, it's why Zordon chose them all as Rangers.

He wonders how he slipped through, got lost in the shuffle. Perhaps this thing he's grown into was too young, too half-formed to be recognized. But now he now thinks he knows why he couldn't take the Gold Rangers powers. His body didn't reject the powers. They rejected him, saw within and knew he would always find a way to bend a little further.

When he looks over at her, staring at the wall, planning their next move and realizes he's glad she went away, went through whatever she did, glad she became flexible, too.

_Knife wound, down his right calf_—he stops trusting children.

When her fingers scrabble at his face, thumbs pressing against his eyelids in a not-quite empty threat, "Look at me, damn you! Just look at me!"

And he does, and in her rage she's so fiercely beautiful he can't bring himself to ever close his eyes again.

The first time she claims him so completely that only word he knows anymore is her name.

_Rock, left temple_—he can't blame them, he had the man at gunpoint, were the roles reversed he doubts he'd be so kind, or at the very least his aim would be better.

When she looks over at him, her eyes glassy and unfocused from the very nice bottle of . . . whatever it is they're drinking . . . and murmurs the answer to a question he never asked. "Charlie, his name was Charlie."

And somehow he picks up the thread they dropped months ago. "Before or after the guns?"

She pauses, considering, then responds, "Charlie was the guns."

It's not an answer, not really, but he fingers the .38 tucked in his waistband, the .38 she put there, and realizes it is.

When later that night, she rolls on her side to stare at him in the firelight, and asks, without rancor or demand, "When will you forgive me?"

"For what?"

"For what you've always held against me. For not being her." It's not about now. It's about then, that time that doesn't exist, that space of never when he used to watch her, watch her fight, watch her run, watch her come towards him in another's uniform, and allow himself to blur the lines, to ignore the inconsistencies. He never had forgiven her for being the wrong face under the helmet.

"It never happened. It's not important."

"So that's a never." And for the first time she actually looks vulnerable, not very, but enough. He reaches up to touch her face.

"From the first moment I saw you, I never wanted you to be anyone else." It could be romantic, except he's talking about the now, but in this now it's true, for he would never wish this world on Trini, would never wish Trini to see this version of him.

Because Aisha knows what he's saying in all its many facets, she sleeps on the other side of the room.

And he's lonely with her so far away.

When he brings back a brightly-colored scarf for her the next day, the kind she's taken to wrapping her hair in, and she doesn't ask what it's for, doesn't ask where he got it, just trades it out for her current mud-splattered one. He's glad the red camouflages most of the blood.

Her forgiveness is cheaply bought.

_Gunshot wound, abdomen_—he holds her hand to his skin, presses it against the mess of blood and flesh, and whispers, "I'm sorry there won't be a scar."

"It doesn't matter," she whispers back, and he knows that although he was never the reason she lived, he might be her reason to die, to finally lay down her burdens. This is his gift to her.

No he can't pinpoint the moment, can't say when exactly he fell into this not-love. Sometimes he thinks he slipped, slowly, gently, sometimes he thinks he tumbled head first. Perhaps he fell from the moment he first saw her, the moment he first drew blood. But he has fallen, and as he presses his lips against hers, kisses her for the first time, he realizes that although there is precious little left that he won't do, for her he is capable of anything.

He draws the edge of the blade along her carotid artery with perfect, surgical precision.

In another world, another time, it would have been a pretty thought.

But in another world, another time, he would never have tasted her relief on his tongue, and it is the sweetest thing he has ever tasted.

- + - + - + - + -

_I honestly wasn't sure I was going to post this, but Dagmar encouraged me, told me that despite it's darkness it deserved life, so if you like it, thank Dagmar, if you hate it, blame me, I wrote the freaking thing._

So there we go. I finished a fic. Comments and Criticisms always appreciated. At least tell me your favorite part.

Panache

P.S. If you're a writer and any of this has struck you with plot bunnies, please join us. Just tell me you did so I can add you to the C2 archive.


End file.
